Lisa Jardine and Mary Warnock – Britain’s answer to Machiavelli

The outgoing chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Lisa Jardine, has been paying graceful tribute to the woman whose report enabled the Authority to be set up: Dame Mary Warnock. She was, observed Prof Jardine, in an aural essay on Radio 4’s A Point of View, regarded as something of a philosophical plumber to the establishment, a woman who cleared away all the tiresome impediments in the way of getting things done with her practical, no-nonsense approach. And the Warnock Report of 1984 on in vitro fertilisation and its attendant moral problems was a case in point.

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Druin Burch

Lucy Letby and the killer nurse I worked with

Now, Dame Mary’s utility to the establishment as someone who can put a useful philosophical spin on any liberal consensus has indeed been invaluable. I can’t find it in myself, however, to share the view that this contribution has been benign.